Asia

Thailand's Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha at a press conference in Bangkok on Tuesday, when he announced that he was seeking to replace martial law with sweeping new powers for the junta he leads.

Thailand's Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha at a press conference in Bangkok on Tuesday, when he announced that he was seeking to replace martial law with sweeping new powers for the junta he leads. (Sakchai Lalit / Associated Press)

Thailand's coup leader-turned-prime minister on Tuesday called for an end to martial law, to be replaced with sweeping authority for himself that human rights advocates likened to absolute power with impunity.

On many Friday evenings, 38-year-old Tomo Iwabuchi and six friends can be found on a street corner in Fukushima City, banging drums, chanting and singing. "Zero nukes!" Iwabuchi yells into a microphone as a few pedestrians stride by.

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It may beggar the imagination that 1960s Alabama should evoke this concrete jungle of a Chinese city. Yet Hong Kong viewers of "Selma" are seeing echoes of the American civil rights struggle in their own fight for democracy.

It was a scene wholly unimaginable just a few years ago when this country was under strict military rule and its press subject to overwhelming controls: The ballroom of one of this city’s fanciest hotels, filled with journalists from around the world, assembled for an international...

This former British colony of 5.5 million people bustles in a uniquely orderly way. The banyan-shaded boulevards are teeming, but never too crowded. Street-food vendors are corralled into designated centers. The occasional flatbed truck, loaded with a dozen laborers, whizzes past omnipresent...

Pity the poor office worker. It's midafternoon, and taking a break probably means sneaking off to the vending machine for a soda, or at best slipping out for coffee. But what about those who crave cuddle time with a cat? Or maybe a snuggle session with a bunny? A cappuccino in the company of an...

After pulling on his army-green fisherman’s overalls, Hiromitsu Ito crams a cigarette between his lips and guns the throttle on his boat, steering it out into the waters that have sustained and betrayed him.

Two blocks from the new Rolls-Royce showroom with its mind-boggling prices, two street peddlers say they don't pay attention to the luxurious rides now mixing amid hordes of motorbikes. Why should they?

Snare drums rustle and trumpets blare. Chocolates from a famed confectioner in Syria are handed out among the crowd. The hall falls silent. A minute of remembrance is observed for the more than 200,000 killed during almost four years of civil war in Syria.

Odgerel Tsagaan, a clerk at a cashmere shop here in Mongolia's frigid, bustling capital, received a text message on her cellphone in late January from the recently installed prime minister, asking her advice on the country's economic woes.

Americans tuning in to Friday's Golden State Warriors game might be surprised to find the California team sporting new uniforms. The jerseys will feature Chinese characters on the chest, a Great Wall motif running up the sides, and a goat on the sleeve.

It was almost like a scene out of a Disney movie, a princess-crying-in-a-castle shot. In this case, though, it was none other than the daughter of top Hong Kong official Leung Chun-ying, who was seen weeping on the balcony of a grand old colonial building in Hong Kong

Strolling through an underground Taipei shopping mall, bored by store after store selling humdrum bags and coats, I suddenly came upon a terrifying image: a row of bodies being rhythmically struck by men wielding glinting kitchen cleavers.

Wearing woolen hats pulled down tight against the winter chill, the newly arrived youngsters from western China scurried around the ramshackle, low-rise apartment complex chasing after soccer balls and drifting balloons. They scampered into tents brimming with donated items, making off with...

The suit said it all. As global fashion mavens know by now, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi met President Obama in New Delhi this week, the broad-chested 64-year-old Indian leader wore a navy blue suit with his name stitched into the wool over and over in gold pinstripes.

At first glance, Beijing's quest to host the 2022 Winter Olympics may sound, well, a bit quixotic. After all, the city's skies are notoriously smoggy, its main proposed ski venue is a five-hour drive northwest of the city center, and the mountains there receive, bid organizers acknowledge,...

At one of Asia’s largest slaughterhouses, there are more police officers than cattle. The stalls where butchers clean and quarter chicken, sheep, goats and pigs buzz with activity while the section reserved for bulls sits barren.

China is rapidly building five man-made islands from tiny reefs and shoals in the South China Sea, U.S. officials say, sparking concern that Beijing is growing more assertive in the disputed waters even as the United States boosts its own forces in the western Pacific.

Like most people in Taiwan, Chang Jui-cheng has a smartphone with access to games such as Candy Crush and Zombie Tsunami. But on a recent Saturday, the 24-year-old graduate student spent three hours playing old-fashioned board games, and actually paid for the low-tech experience.

Just two months after his last trip to Asia, President Obama left Saturday for a three-day visit to India that includes no world summits, no major decisions to make and a relaxed schedule designed mainly to give plenty of chances for dinner and conversation with the country's popular new...

Chen Lei runs a Shanghai business that helps pregnant Chinese women fly to Southern California and give birth in hospitals in Whittier, Fountain Valley, Pomona and other nearby cities. But come Feb. 19 — when the Chinese New Year begins, closing out the year of the horse and ushering in...